HIV and AIDS

1884 – ongoing50 items

hivmedicine
An HIV-infected H9 T cell, scanning electron micrograph with added colour; the small yellow particles are HIV. Image: NIAID, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
An HIV-infected H9 T cell, scanning electron micrograph with added colour; the small yellow particles are HIV. Image: NIAID, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

From Kinshasa to a twice-yearly jab

A virus crossed from chimpanzees into people in Central Africa early in the twentieth century and spread unseen for sixty years. It was recognised in 1981 in Los Angeles and New York, identified in Paris in 1983, and held in check by combination therapy from 1996. Getting that therapy to the people who needed it, most of them in southern Africa, took activists, courts and new money.

The toll

  • 44.2 million deaths from AIDS-related illness, 1981–2025

  • 41.0 million people living with HIV at the end of 2025

  • 32.1 million of them on antiretroviral therapy

Figures are UNAIDS estimates for 2025 from its 2026 fact sheet, with wide ranges: 33.8–61.1 million deaths, 35.3–47.5 million people living with HIV. Each item gives the range where it cites a number.

How to read it

Five bands frame the story: the window for the virus’s origin, decades of unseen spread, fifteen years without effective treatment, treatment for the few, and the scale-up. A sixth, overlapping band covers South Africa’s denialism years. Filter by science, treatment, prevention, protest, funding or south africa to follow one thread.

We condemn attempts to label us as “victims,” a term which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally “patients,” a term which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are “People With AIDS.” — The Denver Principles, 1983

Items

  1. The window for HIV-1 group M’s common ancestor

    ≈ 46 years · Kinshasa, then Léopoldville

  2. Decades of unseen spread

    ≈ 60 years, 11 months · Kinshasa, Kisangani and Lubumbashi

  3. ZR59, the oldest known HIV-positive blood sample

    Kinshasa, then Léopoldville

  4. The virus reaches Haiti

    Haiti

  5. Fifteen years without effective treatment

    ≈ 15 years

  6. Five cases of pneumonia in Los Angeles

    Los Angeles

  7. Kaposi’s sarcoma in New York and California

    New York City

  8. The CDC names it AIDS

  9. LAV, a new retrovirus, is isolated in Paris

    Institut Pasteur, Paris

  10. The Denver Principles

    Denver, Colorado

  11. Ward 5B opens in San Francisco

    San Francisco General Hospital

  12. AIDS is found among women and men in Kinshasa

    Mama Yemo Hospital, Kinshasa

  13. Washington announces HTLV-III

    Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Washington

  14. The first HIV blood test is licensed

  15. The first International AIDS Conference

    Atlanta, Georgia

  16. “Slim disease” in Rakai

    Rakai District, Uganda

  17. HIV-2 is found in West Africa

    Guinea-Bissau

  18. ACT UP forms in New York

    Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, New York

  19. AZT is approved

  20. TASO is founded in Kampala

    Kampala

  21. The Quilt on the National Mall

    National Mall, Washington

  22. “Seize Control of the FDA”

    Parklawn Building, Rockville, Maryland

  23. Thailand takes its 100% condom programme national

    Bangkok

  24. Magic Johnson announces he has HIV

    Great Western Forum, Inglewood

  25. AZT cuts mother-to-child transmission by two-thirds

  26. The first protease inhibitor

  27. Treatment for the few

    ≈ 6 years, 6 months

  28. Triple therapy at Vancouver

    Vancouver Convention Centre

  29. Brazil guarantees free treatment

    Brasília

  30. Denialism in South Africa’s government

    ≈ 8 years, 11 months · Union Buildings, Pretoria

  31. The Durban conference

    International Convention Centre, Durban

  32. Cipla offers triple therapy for a dollar a day

    Mumbai

  33. Drug companies drop their case against South Africa

    High Court, Church Square, Pretoria

  34. Botswana starts free national treatment

    Gaborone, Botswana

  35. The Global Fund is set up

    Geneva

  36. The Constitutional Court rules in the TAC case

    Constitutional Court, Johannesburg

  37. The treatment scale-up

    ≈ 22 years, 5 months

  38. PEPFAR is announced

    United States Capitol

  39. AIDS deaths peak

  40. The first single-pill daily regimen

  41. The chimpanzee source is traced to Cameroon

    South-eastern Cameroon

  42. The Berlin patient

    Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin

  43. Circumcision is recommended for HIV prevention

    Rakai District, Uganda

  44. The Nobel Prize for discovering HIV

    Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institutet

  45. HPTN 052: treatment is prevention

  46. PrEP is approved

  47. Undetectable = Untransmittable

  48. The London patient

    Hammersmith Hospital, London

  49. Twice-yearly lenacapavir is approved for prevention

  50. UNAIDS’s count for 2025